These beautiful poems, considered merely as didactic, have the justest claim to utility. In what relates to agriculture in particular, the precepts were judiciously adapted to the climate of Italy, and must have conveyed much valuable information to those who were desirous of cultivating that important art, which was held in great honour amongst the Romans. The same remark may be made, with greater latitude of application, in respect of the other subjects. But when we examine the Georgics as poetical compositions, when we attend to the elevated style in which they are written, the beauty of the similes, the emphatic sentiments interspersed, the elegance of diction, the animated strain of the whole, and the harmony of the versification, our admiration is excited, at beholding subjects, so common in their nature, embellished with the most magnificent decorations of poetry.
During four days which Augustus passed at Atella, to refresh himself from fatigue, in his return to Rome, after the battle of Actium, the Georgics, just then finished, were read to him by the author, who was occasionally relieved in the task by his friend Mecaenas. We may easily conceive the satisfaction enjoyed by the emperor, at finding that while he himself had been gathering laurels in the achievements of war, another glorious wreath was prepared by the Muses to adorn his temples; and that an intimation was given of his being afterwards celebrated in a work more congenial to the subject of heroic renown.
It is generally supposed that the Aeneid was written at the particular desire of Augustus, who was ambitious of having the Julian family represented as lineal descendants of the Trojan Aeneas. In this celebrated poem, Virgil has happily united the characteristics of the Iliad and Odyssey, and blended them so judiciously together, that they mutually contribute to the general effect of the whole. By the esteem and sympathy excited for the filial piety and misfortunes of Aeneas at the catastrophe of Troy, the reader is strongly interested in his subsequent adventures; and every obstacle to the establishment of the Trojans in the promised land of Hesperia produces fresh sensations of increased admiration and attachment. The episodes, characters, and incidents, all concur to give beauty or grandeur to the poem. The picture of Troy in flames can never be sufficiently (169) admired! The incomparable portrait of Priam, in Homer, is admirably accommodated to a different situation, in the character of Anchises, in the Aeneid. The prophetic rage of the Cumaean Sibyl displays in the strongest colours the enthusiasm of the poet. For sentiment, passion, and interesting description, the episode of Dido is a master-piece in poetry. But Virgil is not more conspicuous for strength of description than propriety of sentiment; and wherever he takes a hint from the Grecian bard, he prosecutes the idea with a judgment peculiar to himself. It may be sufficient to mention one instance. In the sixth book of the Iliad, while the Greeks are making great slaughter amongst the Trojans, Hector, by the advice of Helenus, retires into the city, to desire that his mother would offer up prayers to the goddess Pallas, and vow to her a noble sacrifice, if she would drive Diomede from the walls of Troy. Immediately before his return to the field of battle, he has his last interview with Andromache, whom he meets with his infant son Astyanax, carried by a nurse. There occurs, upon this occasion, one of the most beautiful scenes in the Iliad, where Hector dandles the boy in his arms, and pours forth a prayer, that he may one day be superior in fame to his father. In the same manner, Aeneas, having armed himself for the decisive combat with Turnus, addresses his son Ascanius in a beautiful speech, which, while expressive of the strongest paternal affection, contains, instead of a prayer, a noble and emphatic admonition, suitable to a youth who had nearly attained the period of adult age. It is as follows:
Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem;
Fortunam ex aliis; nunc te mea dextera bello
Defensum dabit, et magna inter praemia ducet.
Tu facito, mox cum matura adoleverit aetas,
Sis memor: et te animo repetentem exempla tuorum,
Et pater Aeneas, et avunculus excitet Hector.—Aeneid, xii.
My son! from my example learn the war
In camps to suffer, and in feuds to dare,
But happier chance than mine attend thy care!
This day my hand thy tender age shall shield,
And crown with honours of the conquered field:
Thou when thy riper years shall send thee forth
To toils of war, be mindful of my worth;
Assert thy birthright, and in arms be known,
For Hector's nephew and Aeneas' son.
Virgil, though born to shine by his own intrinsic powers, certainly owed much of his excellence to the wonderful merits of Homer. His susceptible imagination, vivid and correct, was (170) impregnated by the Odyssey, and warmed with the fire of the Iliad. Rivalling, or rather on some occasions surpassing his glorious predecessor in the characters of heroes and of gods, he sustains their dignity with so uniform a lustre, that they seem indeed more than mortal.
Whether the Iliad or the Aeneid be the more perfect composition, is a question which has often been agitated, but perhaps will never be determined to general satisfaction. In comparing the genius of the two poets, however, allowance ought to be made for the difference of circumstances under which they composed their respective works. Homer wrote in an age when mankind had not as yet made any great progress in the exertion of either intellect or imagination, and he was therefore indebted for big resources to the vast capacity of his own mind. To this we must add, that he composed both his poems in a situation of life extremely unfavourable to the cultivation of poetry. Virgil, on the contrary, lived at a period when literature had attained to a high state of improvement. He had likewise not only the advantage of finding a model in the works of Homer, but of perusing the laws of epic poetry, which had been digested by Aristotle, and the various observations made on the writings of the Greek bard by critics of acuteness and taste; amongst the chief of whom was his friend Horace, who remarks that
————quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.—De Arte Poet.
E'en sometimes the good Homer naps.
Virgil, besides, composed his poem in a state remote from indigence, where he was roused to exertion by the example of several contemporary poets; and what must have animated him beyond every other consideration, he wrote both at the desire, and under the patronage of the emperor and his minister Mecaenas. In what time Homer composed either of his poems, we know not; but the Aeneid, we are informed, was the employment of Virgil during eleven years. For some years, the repeated entreaties of Augustus could not extort from him the smallest specimen of the work; but at length, when considerably advanced in it, he condescended to recite three books—the second, the fourth, and the sixth—in the presence of the emperor and his sister Octavia, to gratify the latter of whom, in particular, the recital of the last book now mentioned, was intended. When the poet came to the words, Tu Marcellus eris, alluding to Octavia's son, a youth of great hopes, who had lately died, the mother fainted. After she had recovered from this fit, by the care of her attendants, she ordered ten sesterces to be given to Virgil for every line relating (171) to that subject; a gratuity which amounted to about two thousand pounds sterling.